How to install multiple packages in CRX/DE on a clean instance?

You are ready to ship your project packages and package-dependencies over to your customers. You have 7+ packages that need to be individually installed; installing 7 packages is manually is not the best approach, and it will take too long (imagine when there are 5 AEM instances that need to be configured). 

What is the fastest way to install multiple packages into CRX/DE? 

The answer is automation.

Pre-requisites:

• Standalone AEM instance, quickstart jar
• Java SE installed on your machine
• CQ5.5 and above

To install multiple packages in CRX/DE during a clean application startup automatically

1. Open terminal or command line, and change directory to your standalone AEM instance, quickstart jar file.
2. In the terminal or command line: java -jar cq-author-4502.jar -unpack
3. This line of code unpacks the installation files for the jar file, and will not run AEM. You should see a /crx-quickstart folder being generated.
4. Create the folder “install” under “/crx-quickstart/install”.
5. Include all the packages in the “install” folder; this will upload and install all the packages within the folder on an application startup; packages will install in alphabetical order.
6. Start AEM.
7. Visit CRX/DE Lite, package manager to ensure all packages are installed(http://localhost:4502/crx/packmgr/index.jsp).
8. Done.

NOTE:
When working with AEM 6.3 forms package addon, I suggest not include the forms packages in the automation. This will break your AEM instance. I tried it multiple times.